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Privacy@Michigan

Symposium & Research Showcase

Privacy is an inherently interdisciplinary research topic that touches many disciplines at the University of Michigan. U-M faculty and researchers across many fields either face or address privacy challenges and issues in their work. This event in celebration of the International Data Privacy Day brings together faculty, researchers, students and staff from different colleges, schools and units across campus and aims to spark on-going, multidisciplinary conversations about privacy’s role in society – here at U-M and worldwide.

The keynote speaker Sarah St. Vincent will present "Privacy and Power: Why Is Privacy a Constitutional and Human Right?"

Abstract:

Privacy is often dismissed as a concern that should take a backseat to “national security” and crime prevention—or downplayed as something people in the digital age freely trade away. However, privacy rights have deep historical and legal ties to equality and human dignity. In the United States, the right to privacy found in the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment began life as a free-speech protection and safeguard against political tyranny, and privacy-related concepts continue to be a means by which women, racial minorities, LGBT people, and the poor gain greater equality and resist state oppression. This talk will present the idea of privacy as equality and invite listeners to consider the role privacy plays in the causes that are most important to them.

Program:

1:00 pm Opening remarks and welcome

Ravi Pendse, University of Michigan Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer

1:30 pm Keynote Address

Sarah St. Vincent, Researcher/Advocate on National Security, Surveillance, and Domestic Law Enforcement, Human Rights Watch.This session will feature a 30-minute talk, "Privacy and Power: Why Is Privacy a Constitutional and Human Right?," followed by a 30-minute "fireside chat" with Thomas A. Finholt, Dean of the School of Information.